The development of all spheres of social life leads to increasing requirements for professionalism and competence of specialists in various industries. In order to meet the requirements of employers and the constantly changing labour market conditions, it is necessary to improve the quality of specialists training by improving the education system in educational institutions. Requirements for specialist training in the Russian Federation are regulated by a number of legislative acts, such as the Federal law "On Education in the Russian Federation", "Strategy of Innovative Development of the Russian Federation until 2020", the Federal State Educational Standard for Higher Professional Education (3rd generations FSES), sample curriculum for the discipline "Foreign Language" for non-linguistic universities and faculties (approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, 2011). Based on the above-mentioned regulatory framework, educational institutions develop local regulatory and methodological base, including work programmes, a set of assessment tools and other materials. In particular, such a base was developed at the Don State Technical University for future specialists in the agro-industrial complex. The discipline "Foreign Language" was introduced into the educational program to form students' foreign language communicative competence - the readiness and ability to carry out oral and written communication in social, academic and professional spheres, including using knowledge of the basics of professional terminology in a foreign language.